The Blue Knights
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: Instant Action battle on Kashyyyk in Star Wars: Battlefront II. Clone Wars, Republic perspective. The survivors wonder what's the point of their role as soldiers of the Republic.


There was a massive battle on Kashyyyk, the home planet of the Wookiees, about halfway through 20 BBY, during the Clone Wars, with the Republic clone army against the Separatist battle droids. I played a pivotal role in that battle, as did several of my brothers in arms. My name is Fours, a name I chose because of my unit number, CT-37-4444, just like ARC trooper Fives named himself after his number, too. My friends who served with me there were named Butch, Joker, Camper, and Cocoa. We trained together on Kamino in a cadet squad called Beta Squad, where we became some of the finest soldiers in the cloning facilities, though some people believed that Bravo Squad and Domino Squad did even better.

* * *

The battle began with my brothers and I coming out from behind the seawall and the wooden barricade or from a command post on the northwestern beachhead. Joker, Camper, and I started behind the seawall, while Butch and Cocoa were on the beach. Our commander, Vill, and our Jedi General, Yoda, had strategized that we hold our command post on the beach at all costs, while some of our men would do a lightning raid on the furthest CIS command post to the southeast. The plan was to stop the droids from gaining an advantage over the vital seawall by keeping them from taking our post, while our raiding men would take over the post to the south and box in the other droid command post in-between them.

So as the fighting started, the three of us plus many other troopers of the 501st came running down to meet the droids, accompanied by many Wookiee warriors. Commander Vill was with us. He ordered the bulk of our army to guard the beach, while some others guarded the seawall, and then ten troopers, including Joker, Camper, and myself, were ordered to take the BARC speeders in the lightning raid against the southern post. We mounted up, and raced across the water to that location, shooting some droids which where wading through the water. Cocoa was piloting an IFT-X hover tank, and with his gunner, he fired at the approaching droid tread tanks of the Corporate Alliance, while Butch defended the spot on foot.

When we arrived, battle droids and super battle droids were spawning like crazy, firing at us as we came. We fired our BARC speeders' blasters and managed to take down five or six metalheads. Then we dismounted, and we blasted away at them with our DC-15 blasters, the blue bolts always being a welcoming sight for me where evil came to murder and destroy. I was able to kill five droids, while my brothers took the rest. I remember that Joker took a glancing blaster shot on his shoulder, but still fought heroically, shouting, "For the Republic!"

When the command post was clear and under Republic control, I ordered Camper to stay there with a total of twenty clone newcomers, and Joker and I took the speeders back to the beach. Several assassin droids had taken over an elevated structure above the beachhead, and were using concussion turrets and sniper rifles to take shoot down troops near the captured southern post. We ran up there, firing all the way, and managed to kill all the sniper droids; however, before all could be busted, one droid shot Joker through the head, killing him quickly. I had to mourn him for a moment, because Joker was a clone trooper with an impeccable sense of humor and a light-hearted outlook on things. He loved wearing the green camouflaged clone scout trooper armor whenever he could, and he was a crack shot, making him a clone sharpshooter. He had dreamed of having a free life in one of the Mid Rim systems, possibly with a job as a miner, a wife, and kids. Now… that was all gone. Joker had gone wherever the souls of dead men and women went after death, and he wouldn't be coming back. But soon I had to stop my weeping, because there was still a battle going on, and I had other brothers to support and defend, as well.

I commandeered one of the turrets in the structure, and aimed it down at the beach. Our hover tanks had defeated some of the droid tread tanks, but the wooden barricade was long since destroyed, and the droids were trying to blast their way through the seawall's defenders. I could see that General Yoda had chopped the enemy STAPs to pieces, and the commander had shot their riders to pieces with his chaingun, too, almost single-handedly. Butch was still valiantly protecting the Republic post, and Cocoa was presumably still doing well in his tank, but there were three tread tanks left still, and they might have already overwhelmed my brothers. I turned the turret to aim at the weak spot of a droid tread tank, the rear wheel, and fired continually at it. With four powerful blasts, the tank blew up. My men let out a cheer for a moment.

But then a few super battle droids came my way, no doubt to stop me from shooting any more tanks, but I shot 'em all. However, instead of returning to the turret, I came back down to the beach, because I thought I could do more good down there at this point. The buckets were so determined to defeat us that it was astounding! When I got down there, though, a droid shot Butch in the left arm. He almost lost his blaster, but he continued to fight, blasting the droid to shreds, until a shot from an engineer droid's shotgun downed him, ironic because he himself was a clone engineer.

Next, a heavy trooper blew up another tread tank, while clone sharpshooters in camouflaged scout armor ran up the elevated structure to take my place there. Incidentally, Cocoa was also a clone engineer, hence his role as one of the tank pilots, and he was doing his best to keep up the repairs caused by enemy fire and explosions, but the last droid tread tank was bearing down on him, and his gunner was dead. But then, Camper came in to save the day. He was a heavy trooper, by the way, and he fired a rocket into the rear wheel, critically damaging it. Cocoa moved in and fired his missile launchers at the tank until it was totaled like the others. We had the upper hand!

Being programmed simply for killing, though, the remaining droids didn't give up, and we still had to fight for a little while yet. Camper quickly told us that he and his men had taken the last command post, and Cocoa reported that we still had control of the northwestern beach and the seawall, though the droids had come dangerously close to breaching the seawall a little earlier. Cocoa and Camper joined the other troops to finish off the last droids, while I went to see Butch. He was still alive, but he assured me that his wound was mortal. I told him that Joker had died, too, but the droids were almost all gone, and Cocoa and Camper were fine. Butch said simply that he was glad he had known them all, and for them to keep fighting for the peace, order, and security of the galaxy, while never forgetting their brothers who bravely died in that battle. And then he died.

* * *

A while later, Cocoa, Camper, and I were mourning Butch and Joker's deaths, wondering what the point of all this fighting was, and the point of the Clone Wars. Cocoa suggested that we fought for peace and order to be restored to the galaxy, while Camper suggested that we were bred to follow all our orders without question in a time of turbulent war. I agreed that these things were important, especially fighting for peace and order, but as I looked at our fellow brothers in the 501st in their beautiful blue-and-white armor, many of them with nicks and/or dirt marking them, which only made them even more beautiful, it came to me. My brothers and I were the new guardians of the galaxy. The Jedi Generals and Commanders were great heroes in their own right, too, but their order, sadly, was becoming more and more corrupt, according to the HoloNet and the Supreme Chancellor. It was time for a change, though by no means the kind of change the Confederacy wanted.

We are not perfect, either, except as warriors. Some of us even question our roles and orders privately, on occasion; I know I have. But the Republic, as complacent as it is, needs to become a stronger, more orderly galactic government to support and protect its citizens, and that's where we come in. We are the kind of heroes the galaxy needs right now. We are the Republic's lethal weapon, its brave guardians, its loyal protectors. We serve the sovereignty and royalty that breaths life to this galaxy.

We are the Blue Knights.


End file.
